The High & Dry Draft Podcast

Long time no pod! Kind of been on a hiatus this season as I've been focusing on some other projects but randomly threw out a "C.J. come on the pod" after he tweeted about John Reynolds having "that wet wet" (paraphrasing). And, like the nice guy he is, he accepted! C.J. has basically lived a dream career of mine from writing for Fallon, making Funny or Die videos for the Detroit Pistons, content for every big sports digital company, and now has his own creative studio, Follow Through, that makes all the cool, funny sports content I wish I had the skill and/or connections to make, lol. They're developing a thing with Anthony Edwards!!! Anyways beyond that C.J. also has started some long running comedian pickup games and he gives us the down low on everyone's game from Brooklyn alt comedians to Nick Kroll, Sarah Silverman, and Adam McKay. Also he played catholic league basketball growing up! Wild.

Gonna try to maybe get a 4/20 episode out where me and some pals just shit out our thoughts from this season real high and then probably do another pre-draft episode. Hopefully next season I get to go more in on this and get cool guests like C.J. while also getting back to some hardcore draft/2k nerd shit. And also maybe getting high and watching weird basketball movies. Wanna do a film mini series at some point. Pod will be around for the future, just intermittently for now :-)

Timestamps:

Catholic School / Church League Basketball: 2:07

Kobe in the HS State Championship: 10:15

Anthony Edwards: 14:40

Comedian Pickup Game Scouting Report: 16:55

2K Crystal Ball: 37:08

This one is pretty self explanatory. No 2K, no nostalgia, almost no Wolves talk, just Peter Joe and I rambling about playoffs and the draft for a little over an hour and a half. I edited this at 3 am after work aka hardly edited this so it is for sure rambly. Happy draft day!

This podcast has... listeners? Lito (@CozyLito on twitter) was very cool and reached out over DM about liking the show. We smoked together and talked draft, the power of 2k11, being a Seattle basketball fan, and JT Thor. And of course, we look into the 2k crystal ball. Super fun time. Got this and one other episode I'll try to get out before the draft tomorrow, these both are more rambly and conversational and fairly draft heavy. Will continue to slowly (lol first episode in over 3 months) crank out these draft twitter origin stories, hopefully accompanied by random episodes/tall tales from my personal basketball history, and also maybe step into talking basketball movies and other media probably starting with Space Jam 2. 

Staying true to my brand and finally posting an episode I recorded back in February lol  Had one of the inspirations for the pod on! Ben Pfeifer was one of the co hosts of Prep2Pro which is one of the best draft podcasts available anywhere and spawned a whole community of young draft nerds that are slowly but surely taking over basketball Twitter.   We get into his history growing up with basketball, getting into the draft, and starting the pod (17:00). Then we continue our run on point guards in this upcoming draft as Ben happens to be the leader of the Jaden Springer Fan Club (21:08). We also hit on some sports video game talk from NBA Live 2008 to 2K’s MyTeam and various Ultimate Teams (31:04). We wrap up with 2k Lineups ft Springer (43:17) and of course, look into the 2K Crystal Ball. (also I left a dumb lil 420 ramble at the end)

Had an awesome time talking with Henry Ward, rising draft twitter star, through how he grew up playing basketball in LA, in Rec Leagues, and even at Grinnell and their insane system for a year.  Henry does a lot of very cool work with NBA trainers, just got a professional scouting job, and on his blog he writes insanely nuanced posts on draft guys, skill development, team building philosophy. He even got to help out at the NBA bubble this past summer.   In addition to all that we talk through the insanely fun Sharife Cooper’s game (18:14) and his outlook as a prospect, and as always touch on 2K (32:20) and as always, peer into the 2K Crystal Ball. 

Check him out at @Henrywward @thekickahead!

Just kinda rambling with the SSP Squad, did very little prep for this one just tryna sorta get in the swing of pumping these out again.   

Good episode! We start out shooting the shit about working at Super Summer Program and kind of on teaching the basketball class there but honestly mainly just reminisce about the job in general. I didn’t really keep us on an NBA Draft adjacent path despite there definitely being one available lol  

We talk 2K and FIFA at around (17:30), get to Jalen Suggs, the Wolves, and some fantasy basketball at around (30:25) and of course, take a look into the 2K Crystal Ball (54:09)   

Zach makes music that you should check out (@808popstar) and Michael also talks basketball on the @fuzzylove podcast

First High & Dry in literal months and wow. What a week! Harden trade, impeachment, the KAT Covid diagnosis.  Join Joe Peter Styli and myself as we discuss none of that stuff! We recorded this last Sunday and I just now got around to editing it. 

We ramble about this years draft, the Wolves’ haul, I play some fun audio from our draft watch party reacting to the picks, we talk about some early season reactions, give some basic thoughts on next years draft and, as always, look deep into the 2k crystal ball. We also submit our picks for “Highest Timberwolf 2021”.  Fun episode!

This is actually the second one I recorded like 3 months ago lol but was trying to get enough of my “basketball backstory” out there before doing strictly prospect episodes but we’ll alternate between the two for now, I have lots of of ideas for both.

A very fun episode about probably the most fun prospect in this draft! I bring on Ignacio Rissotto from the Stepien and ID Prospects and have him talk about this skinny 7 foot wonder from the Adriatic second league. I also bring on old pal Stylianos, one of my only connections to anything Greek, to cape for Poku and the strength of the league that produced Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Ignacio and Styli are both great, we talk  about this NBA GM browser game simulator Ignacio put me on to (13:00) (https://play.basketball-gm.com/)

A shit ton about Poku and his potential fit on the Wolves (again this was recorded like 3 months ago so we didn’t know we had the first pick) (27:34)

And as always finish with some 2k lineup talk and take a look into the 2k crystal ball. (1:04:27)

I bring on two fellow alums from Southwest High School's basketball program, that are now both doing the legit sports media career routes,(@WillRagatz and @AidanBerg_ on Twitter) to talk 2k drinking games (7:15), our experiences playing for the relatively shitty program at our high school (14:17), we break down Onyeka Okongwu's game led by Aidan who got to take in Okongwu first hand last year at USC (26:29). As always we end with some 2k lineup shenanigans and a look into the 2K crystal ball (37:33). 

Mike Gribanov (@mikegrib8 on Twitter) of The Stepien drops by High & Dry in what is actually the first episode I recorded back in like early July.   We talk Anthony Edwards to start and then I bring on pals Jin, Peter, Jaylen and our first two-time guest Tommy Bayer from the We Cool Podcast to talk our fierce rivalry in parkboard basketball, essentially intramurals in high school for our local parks, Fuji Water vs The Hoops Company (THC) (14:10). Mike entertains this nonsense and gives us some NBA player comps. 

Mike and I finish up on Anthony Edwards and talk 2k lineups at 52:50. 

On Twitter and Instagram @highdrydraftpod

Episode is also on YouTube with some 2k generated visuals.

PD Web (@abovethebreak3 on Twitter) comes on High & Dry and we talk Pokemon as basketball players, Killian Hayes, and AAU memories. 

I go deeper into youth basketball memories with some members of my first traveling basketball team: Evan,  Tommy, and Nick. (37:40)

I go back to PD to finish off our Killian discussion and discuss some fits on 2k generated rosters. (1:36:18)

Youtube version coming in a few days. 

For the debut episode of The High & Dry Draft Pod I'm joined by 3 guys I have played basketball with dating back to middle school. One is Wolves writer and former De La Salle High School varsity basketball manager, Jack Borman (@jrborman13), serving as our "expert guest" on Tyrell Terry. The other two are my friends that also went to MN Basketball powerhouse De La Salle for high school. Joe, @HurricaneJoe_, who has been talking draft with me for over ten years now, and Eli, who was by far the best basketball player at our tiny catholic school and would go on to play varsity at De alongside a ton of D1 players. 

We start out remembering the silliness of middle school Catholic league basketball (4:43)

Get into De La Salle's place in the MN basketball world and what it's like being on a part of one of those top flight high school teams (32:16)

Talk Tyrell as a prospect kind of in depth (1:07:45)

Talk what 2K generated rosters Tyrell best fits on, more discussion on role and potential outcomes etc. (1:28:35)

Thanks for checking it out.

i also wrote like 10 pages concerning the what / how / why of what's going on here, you can read them here: bit.ly/3hXQTMu